"Thank you, Caleb; but if you're right, I'm afraid I'm doomed to see
snakes frequently for the remainder of my natural life."
"Speakin' o' snakes as a means o' grace," said Caleb, "p'r'aps 'twould
int'rest you to know that some awful drunkards in this county was
converted by snakes. Yes'm; snakes in their boots scared them drunkards
into the kingdom."
"In--their--boots?" murmured Grace, with a wild stare. "How utterly
dreadful! I didn't suppose that the crawling things--"
"Your education in idioms hasn't been completed, my dear," said Philip.
"'Snakes in their boots' is Westernese for delirium tremens."
"Oh, Caleb! How could you? But do tell me how photography is to be a
means of grace."
"I'll do it--as soon as I can find out. I'm askin' the question myself,
just now, an' I reckon I'll find the answer before I stop tryin'. There
don't seem to be anythin' about your camera that'll spile, an' I've
read that book o' instructions through an' through, till I've got it
'most by heart. Would you mind lettin' me try to make a pictur' or two
some day?"
"Not in the least. You're welcome to the camera and outfit at almost
any time."
Meanwhile Grace continued to "have lots of fun" with the camera. She
resolved to have a portrait collection of all the babies in the town;
and as she promised prints to the mothers of the subjects, she had
no difficulty in obtaining "sittings." To the great delight of the
mothers, the pictures were usually far prettier than the babies, for
Grace smiled and gesticulated and chirruped at the infants until she
cajoled some expression into little faces usually blank. Incidentally
she got some mother pictures that impressed her deeply and made her
serious and thoughtful for hours at a time.
Her greatest success, however, according to the verdict of the people,
was a print with which she dashed into the store one day, exclaiming to
her husband and Caleb:--
"Do look at this! I exposed the plate one Sunday morning, weeks ago,
and then mislaid the holder, so that I didn't find it until to-day."
It was a picture of the front of the church, taken a few moments before
service began--the moments, dear to country congregations, in which
the people, too decorous to whisper in church, yet longing to chat
with acquaintances whom they had not met in days or weeks, gathered in
little groups outside the building. The light had been exactly right;
also the distance and the focus, and the people so well distributed
that the picture was almost as effective as if its material had been
arranged and "composed" by an artist.
"Je--ru--salem!" exclaimed Caleb. "Why, the people ain't much bigger
than tacks, an' yet I can pick out ev'ry one of 'em by name. Well,
well!"
He took the print to the door and studied it more closely. When he
returned with it, he continued:--
"That's a great pictur'. It ought to have a name."
"H'm!" said Philip, winking at his wife, "how would this do: 'Not
exactly a means of grace, but within fifteen minutes of it'--eh?"
"It's a mighty sight nigher than that," said Caleb, solemnly, "besides
bein' the best 'throw-in' that's come to light yet. Give copies of
that away to customers that don't ever go to church, an' they'll
begin to go, hopin' they'll stand a chance o' bein' took in the next;
an' if they get under the droppin's of the sanctuary, why, Brother
Grateway an' the rest of us'll try to do the rest. Grateway needs some
encouragement o' that kind, for he's sort o' down in the mouth about
nothin' comin' of his efforts with certain folks in this town. He's
dropped warnin's and exhortations on 'em, in season an' out o' season,
for quite a spell, but he was tellin' me only yesterday that it seemed
like the seed in the parable, that was sowed on stony ground. An'
say--Je--ru--salem!--when did you say you took that?"
"Two or three weeks ago," Grace replied.
"An' you didn't develop it till to-day?"
"Not until to-day."
"An' the pictur' has been on the plate all that time?"
"In one way, yes. That is, the plate had been exposed at the subjects,
and they had been impressed upon it by the light, although it still
looked plain and blank, until the developing fluid was poured upon it."
"How long would it stay so, an' yet be fit to be developed?"
"Oh, years, I suppose. Travellers in Africa and elsewhere have carried
such plates, and exposed them, and not developed them until they
returned to civilization, perhaps a year or two later."
"I want to know! Got any other plate as old as the one this pictur' was
made from?"
"Yes, one; it was in the other side of the same holder."
"Would you mind developin' it to-night, in your kitchen, before
company? Nobody that's fussy--only Brother Grateway."
"You know I'll do anything to oblige you and him, Caleb."
"Hooray! Excuse me, please, while I go off an' make sure o' his comin'."
"What do you suppose is on Caleb's mind now?" Grace asked, as Caleb and
the picture disappeared.
"I give it up," Philip replied, "though I shan't be surprised if 'tis
something relative to a camera being a means of grace."
"I can't imagine how."
"Perhaps not, but let's await--literally speaking--developments."
"He'll be here," said Caleb, a few moments later; he looked gleeful as
he said it, and shuffled his feet in a manner so suggestive of dancing
that Grace pretended to be shocked, at which Caleb reddened. During the
remainder of the afternoon he looked as happy as if he had collected
a long-deferred bill, or given the dreaded "malary" a new repulse. He
hurried Philip and Grace home to supper, so that the kitchen might
sooner be free for photographic purposes, and dusk had scarcely lost
itself in darkness when he closed the store and appeared at the house
with Pastor Grateway, who expressed himself exuberantly concerning the
picture of his church and congregation; but Caleb cut him short by
saying:--
"Ev'rythin' ready, Mis' Somerton? Good! Come along, Brother
Grateway--you, too, Philip."
While the trays and chemicals were being arranged, Caleb explained
to the pastor that photographs were first taken on glass plates,
chemically treated, and that the picture proper was made by light
passing through a plate to the surface of sensitized paper. When the
red lamp was lighted, Caleb continued:--
"Now, when Mis' Somerton lays a plate in that tray, you'll see it's
as blank as a sheet o' paper, or as the faces o' some o' the ungodly
that you've been preachin' at an' laborin' with, year in and year out.
You can't see nothin' on it, no matter if you use a hundred-power
magnifyin' glass. But the pictur' 's there all the same; it was took
weeks ago; might ha' been months or years, but it's there, an' yet the
thing goes on lookin' blank till the developer is poured on it--just
like Mis' Somerton's doin' now. Now keep your eye on it. It don't
seem to mind, at first--goes on lookin' as blank as the faces o'
case-hardened sinners at a revival meetin'. But bimeby--pretty soon--"
"See those spots!" exclaimed the minister. "Eh? Why, to be sure. Well,
a photograph plate is a good deal like measles an' religion--it first
breaks out in spots. But keep on lookin'--see it come!"
"Wonderful! Wonderful!" exclaimed the minister.
"Seemed miraculous to me, first time I see it," said Caleb. "I'd have
been skeered if Mis' Somerton hadn't said 'twas all right, for no magic
stories I ever read held a candle to it. But keep on lookin'. See one
thing comin' after another, an' all of 'em comin' plainer an' stronger
ev'ry minute? Could you 'a' b'lieved it, if you hadn't seen it with
your own eyes? An' even now you've seen it, don't it 'pear 'bout as
mysterious as the ways o' Providence? I've read all Mis' Somerton's
book tells about it, an' a lot more in the cyclopeedy, but it ain't no
less wonderful than it was."
"Absolutely marvellous!" replied the minister.
"That's what it is. Now, Brother Grateway, that plate was just like
the people you was tellin' me 'bout yesterday, that you was clean
discouraged over. You've been pilin' warnin's an' exhortations on 'em,
an' they didn't seem to mind 'em worth a cent--'peared just as blank
as they ever were. But the pictur' was there, an' there 'twas boun'
to stay, as long as the plate lasted--locked up in them chemicals,
to be sure, but there it was all the same, an' out it came when the
developer was poured on an' soaked in. An' so, John Grateway, all that
you've ever put into them people is there, somewhere--heaven only
knows where an' how, for human natur' 's a mighty sight queerer than
a photograph plate, an' to bring out what's in it takes about as many
kinds o' developer as there are people. Mebbe you haven't got the right
developer, but it's somewhere, waitin' for its time--mebbe it'll be
a big scare, or a dyin' wife, or a mother's trouble. Religious talk
rolled off o' me for years, like water from a duck's back, till one
day I fell between two saw-logs in the crick, an' thought 'twas all up
with me--that was the developer I needed. So when you say your prayers
to-night, don't forget to give thanks for havin' seen a photograph
plate developed, an' after this you go right on takin' pictur's, so to
speak, with all your might, an' when you find you can't finish them,
hearten yourself up by rememberin' that there's Somebody that knows
millions of times as much about the developin' business as you do, an'
gives His entire time an' attention to it."
"Photography is a means of grace, Caleb," said Philip, and Grace joined
in the confession.